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 Sunday March 12 2006

Independant Study

So the semester has been running for 2 weeks and I’ve theoretically supposed to have been teaching a class of near native students. However only one student had shown up for class until this Friday making it difficult to plan lessons or even figure out what to do with the class in general. Well now there are eight students enrolled and the class is on.

near natives will receive little benefit from classroom instruction
The students in this class have all lived overseas and attended international schools for significant periods of time. Due to that they received special admittance to my university though for some bizarre reason are not exempt from freshmen English classes, hence my ”advanced” class.

What am I going to do with a class of students who really don’t need classroom instruction and will recieve very little benefit from attending class? Independant study. Independant study does not involve me just telling the students to go study/use English with zero guidance or support from myself. 


Students in this class will be expected to read two novels over the semester. I have prepared a list of ten, of varying genres, that they can choose from. The average length of the novels is 400 pages and most of them are pulp pop fiction. I have read every book on the list in order for me to be able to discuss with the students the content and actually determine that they have read the books they chose. When I first found out about this course I started reading these novels, a book a day, and this is the only holdover from my original plan for this course. I have even read books by John Grisham, whom I despise but because he is popular I figure students will enjoy his books and the reading is for them not me.

extensive reading, blogging, and smallville
I have also set up a blog over at edublogs and will have my students blogging two times per week. They won’t be blogging on the one I set up but rather creating their own blogs on that site as well. Finally I have decided not to meet the students in the alloted class time for discussions etc, instead we will have one on one appointments where I will answer any questions they may have about blogging, reading or English in general. During this time I will also offer advice and/or strategies on ways to maintain or improve thier English on thier own. Since I have eight students and four hours of class time per week each student gets thirty minutes of one on one time. I feel that the one on one time for students at this level will be far more beneficial than what we would be able to accomplish in class.

The last activity that we will do is watch one episode of smallville per three weeks. I’ve found the scripts online (better one here) and will be preparing activities using the scripts. I have season one on DVD and will be buying the remaining seasons soon. At this point my plan for what to do with Smallville is vague and I am looking for suggestions. I’m not interested in merely watching the episode and then talking about it. I’ll probably give students portions of the scripts and do gap fills, also highlight cultural points but this still needs some development.


Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Sunday Mar 12, 2006 at 08:27 AM
Teaching |

Picture of Nathan B.

Nathan B. wrote 10 words  on  Sunday Mar 12, 2006  at  11:02 AM Korea (South)

Assa!  Is the semi-retirement over?  Interesting class you’ve got there.

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AutonoBlogger wrote 45 words  on  Sunday Mar 12, 2006  at  04:04 PM Japan

Sounds interesting. I wonder if you might get any ideas from the class I just blogged about over here, tho it’s not independent study.
What will you use the edublogs blog you’ve set up for?

Never heard of smallville. Is that like Pleasantville… but smaller?!?

Sean.

Sean. wrote 151 words  on  Monday Mar 13, 2006  at  10:34 AM Korea (South)

Nathan,
Over, but still reduced posting frequency. I’m focusing my non-family time on improving my Korean skills. Looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday.

Autonoblogger,
I liked the post you linked to and will think carefully about it and probably end up using some of the ideas mentioned there. The edublogs will be for reflective posting as well as having the students write on topics they choose. Some guidance - re: write about what you’ve read this week or how you’ve used English as an example. And they will also be encouraged to blog on topics of thier own interest just like any other blogger.

Smallville is just about the best superhero tv show ever made. Season one is a little weak but from about two thirds of the way through season one until now it just gets better and better and better. If you can, you really should watch it.

Sean.

Sean. wrote 68 words  on  Saturday Apr 8, 2006  at  06:16 AM Korea (South)

Just found out that the PDFs in the script link above are corrupt. A better place for smallville scripts is here. As I was looking around I found a site with screen captures for entire episodes. The episode I’m working on now, Metamorphosis, has 227 screen shots. You can find the list of seasons and episodes here, which for me will be very useful to make my handouts.

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